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Cost Savings of Genentech's Avastin Gets Closer Look

By

Alicia Mundy And

Jennifer Corbett Dooren

September 7, 2011

WASHINGTON—Medicare could have saved more than $1 billion and Medicare patients $275 million over two years if doctors treated a serious eye disease with Genentech's Avastin instead of the company's similar but more expensive drug Lucentis, according to a new government audit.

The report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services also urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to ask Congress for more power to demand lower costs from manufacturers of expensive biologic drugs like...